User:Nch5719/Cahokia

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The population of Cahokia began to decline during the 13th century, and the site was abandoned by around 1350. Scholars have proposed environmental factors, such as environmental degradation through overhunting, deforestation and pollution, and climatic changes, such as increased flooding and droughts, as explanations for abandonment of the site. However, more recent research suggests that there is no evidence of human-caused erosion or flooding at Cahokia.

Political and economic problems may also have contributed to the community's decline. X and Y argue that Cahokia’s large immigrant population was a factor in the city’s ultimate fragmentation, as differing languages, customs, and religions obstructed the creation of a cohesive Cahokian cultural identity. Analyses of Cahokian burial sites and the associated remains have also shown that many Cahokians were not native to the city or its immediate surrounding region. These immigrants were sometimes buried separately from native residents, a possible indicator of weak integration along ethnic lines. (The Dangers of Diversity, Week 7 reading) It is likely that social and environmental factors combined to produce the conditions that led people to leave Cahokia.

Another possible cause is invasion by outside peoples. Many theories since the late 20th century propose conquest-induced political collapse as the primary reason for Cahokia's abandonment. The only evidence of warfare found is defensive wooden stockade and watchtowers that enclosed Cahokia's main ceremonial precinct. However, the palisade may have been more for ritual or formal separation than for military purposes. As Cahokia's population shrank over the 13th century, Cahokia's palisade was rebuilt several times to encompass increasingly-smaller portions of the city [The Frontier in Pre-Columbian Illinois]

Diseases transmitted among the large, dense urban population are another possible cause of decline. ''Similarly, health issues are known to arise through maize-intense diets. Isotope analysis of burial remains at Cahokia has revealed iron-deficiency anemia and enamel defects potentially stemming from Cahokia's reliance on maize. [Mailer 63][dangers of diversity] However, evidence tying nutritional deficiencies to a broader societal collapse has not been conclusively identified.''

Together with these factors, researchers found evidence in 2015 of major floods at Cahokia, so severe as to flood dwelling places. Analysis of sediment from beneath Horseshoe Lake has revealed that two major floods occurred in the period of settlement at Cahokia, in roughly 1100–1260 and 1340–1460. While flooding may have occurred early in the rise of the city, it seems not to have deterred the city builders; to the contrary, it appears they took steps such as creating channels, dikes, and levees that protected at least the central city throughout its inhabited history.

Archeologists discovered evidence in 2020 that there was a population rebound following Cahokia's population minimum in 1400, with the population reaching a population maximum in 1650 and then declining again in 1700.

Studies of Cahokia’s rise see large-scale immigration as an essential contributor to the city’s initial rapid growth. (Pauketat ‘98) (The Dangers of Diversity)(Casey)

Life in Cahokia

Cahokia was surrounded by rich agricultural lands. The city has been traditionally thought to have been a maize-centric civilization, the crop having been introduced to the region around AD 900. [emerson] While maize is often credited with enabling Cahokia's early population growth, more recent research has suggested that Cahokian diets were quite varied, especially in the city's early period of existence. Other crops included Residents of outlying areas relied heavily on maize for subsistence, while residents of Cahokia’s city center enjoyed more diverse diets. This suggests that higher levels of maize consumption may be correlated with a lower social status among Cahokians. [Mailer]

The impact that Cahokian agriculture had on the environment is hotly debated. (soil depletion, erosion, land clearing. Mt.Pleasant, in contrast, argues that Cahokian farmers’ use of hand tools rather than plows would have maintained soils quality far longer than what has been accepted, making a rapid collapse of agricultural productivity less likely.